Symbolism And Imagery In The Catcher In The Rye

Salinger’s novel, The Catcher in the Rye, is the story of a teenager who doesn’t “fit in society’s mold.” After getting kicked out of his prestigious school, he headed to New York City to live an independent life for a while, which ends up being an emotional roller coaster full of depression, isolation and alcohol abuse. The passage in pages 154-155 prove, using symbolism and imagery that the protagonist is both transitioning from a child into an adult and obsessed with death. First of all, the presence of symbolism in the extract helps the reader further understand the transition that Holden is going through, he’s losing his youth and innocence to become an adult. When he reaches the pond, he says that it’s “partly frozen and partly not frozen”
(line 8), which I think is a symbol for himself. The lagoon represents Holden in his life right now because he is half a child and half an adult, however, there is also a deeper meaning. Throughout the majority of the book, the protagonist has been wondering about where the ducks in the Central Park lagoon go in the winter and if they are coming back and he has mentioned that he wants to be a catcher in the rye, someone that helps children that are about to fall down a cliff. I believe that this job he has created in his mind is a way of saying that he wants to help children keep their innocence in a world that doesn’t promote it. Hence, I think that, if the lagoon represents Holden, the ducks symbolize innocence and youth. He walked around the lagoon, but “didn’t see any ducks around” (line 8), which means that he has become an adult and lost his child self that “used to roller skate [...] and ride [his] bike” (lines 1-2) around Central Park. On the other hand, imagery in the excerpt manifests Holden’s obsession with death. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Holden has talked about death in different ways. He has mentioned his brother Allie’s young death, a boy’s suicide in his old school, Elkton Hills, and the fact that he has wanted to end his own life multiple times. Holden has been through alot and death seems to follow him. One of the main ways the reader sees mortality in the novel is when Holden talk about his own death. When he is in the park looking for the ducks he says he “thought [he’d] probably get pneumonia and die” (lines 15-16) and he makes it sound like a bad thing because of the funeral and how awful it would be for his parents, especially his mother. Still, there are sometimes when he says he wants to kill himself, he even said that he would sit on the next atomic bomb if someone asked him. Holden can’t seem to make up his mind on whether he wants to die or not. Concluding, Holden is known to be a complex character and his life is full of emotional ups and downs, but he appreciates innocence and wants to protect it, especially his own. He’s been asking around to know where ducks go in the winter because those ducks represent his own innocence and youth, however, his life right now, which is symbolized by the lagoon, doesn’t let any of those bloom, his only comfort is knowing that they come back after winter, his innocence will come back when he is happy again. Holden is a troubled teenager who has been surrounded by death for a while now and has become obsessed with it, especially in the form of deciding whether he wants to live or not. This passage is very important to the reader because it shows Holden in a different light. Up until now, he’s been the typical troubled, grumpy teen, but knowing that he just wants to be a kid again makes the reader see the protagonist and interpret his whole story in a different way.